No One Has Seen These Halls
by Nell Fratelli
Summary: "This house was their home, and it will always be mine." The halls of Wayne Manor, courtesy of Alfred.
1. Chapter 1

_In The Beginning_

If Master Bruce had his way, all of the old manor would be left in darkness. Though he was young, I think he remembers enough of life when the master and mistress were here to want to keep those memories in shadow. Other things, too - for he has had more than one era of happiness - he wants to keep in the dark.

But I have been here far too long not to know when Master Bruce's wishes conflict with what is good for him.

I keep the lights on.

* * *

He used to be full of life, Master Bruce. A busy, happy child, running about this great place with his toys and books, singing and chattering away. He was a bit out of touch with the world, as one would expect the heir to however many hundreds of millions his parents had had, but he was a wonderful and open boy.

His mother, of course, doted on him. Madam Mary had wanted to have a large family - she had so loved children - but had had such difficulty with Master Bruce that the doctors said it would be unwise to try again. It made her sad, sometimes, but I believe it eased the pain every time she wrote grants to build schools or threw charity dinners to support foster children or donated to local community centers, as she did frequently and with passion.

Master Thomas worked often and tirelessly, but was religious in the way he reserved Sundays for young Master Bruce. They would play chess or go fishing or watch old movies, and for the rest of the week I would hear countless stories from Master Bruce of what had been done that Sunday - it was always the highlight of his week. Master Thomas loved that boy dearly. I can't recall a single Sunday that wasn't devoted to him.

* * *

He was only a boy, when Master Wayne's world was torn apart. He never sang through the corridors, or played with his toys, or read his books anymore. I had been declared the boy's guardian a few years prior - without the dream that that role would ever be necessary, of course - and as per his parents' will, we were allowed to remain in Wayne Manor.

Now I sometimes wonder if that was the right decision. If perhaps Master Wayne would have been better off growing up away from the shadows of the tragedy, if I had tried harder to have him lead a normal life, would he have been happier for it?

But he'd always had a strong will, and when I'd asked him if he wanted to live elsewhere, he'd said:

"No, Alfred. This house was their home, and it will always be mine."


	2. Chapter 2

_The Return_

There was something different about Master Wayne after the tragedy. Not just in his quietness that hid the hard anger that I knew was there; he spent all his time studying as an adolescent, and ignoring my promptings to go out and meet people his age.

"There's no time for friends," he'd say, and I would be left wondering - fearing - what in the world he meant by that.

He homeschooled himself after completing the eighth grade curriculum that his tutors had had approved in advance by his parents before their deaths, and he was only seventeen years old when he took the end-of-grade school exams.

I remember being so proud when he went away to college, thinking Master Bruce would finally allow himself to live, but it would be a lie to claim that the house didn't feel darker when he left. It had been more than eight years since he was placed under my direct care, but I was at Wayne Manor long before he had been born, and seeing the place truly empty day in and day out as I went about my housekeeping duties was gloomy, to say the least.

It was soon after he left that I received a letter from him, thanking me for the rather large package of his favorite cookies and biscuits that I had sent. I remember the delight I felt as I read the beginning of that letter, and the violent jump to something else at the very end of it.

_I've discovered that what I seek can't be found here or at any school, Alfred. But someone who can give it to me has been brought to my attention, and I've made plans to meet with him. I expect I'll be leaving the country for some time, but I will come back._

* * *

I received a handful of other letters from him over the next years, all of them very vague and with postmarks in a variety of strange Asian-like languages, but with assurances that he was well. These - and his entreaties not to - were all that kept me from sending search parties out for him. It was difficult to take him for his word - he was just a boy - but he'd always exhibited such mature judgment that I had no choice but to comply and hope that he would return in one piece.

He always mentioned that he was in training, though for what, he never said.

_I'm sorry, Alfred, but I can't tell you where I am or what I am doing. Just know that I am becoming stronger and doing work that I think my parents would approve of._

Yes, he was always doing work that his parents would approve of. Like the dedicated son he always was, his greatest desire was to make them proud. My only regret is not convincing Master Bruce that his parents - like myself - would have been proud to call him their son, regardless of what he studied or trained for.

* * *

His return came as a complete surprise. I was sitting down to some tea in the kitchen one day when I looked up to see Master Bruce standing in the doorway, wearing something akin to a pile of heavy rags and a strange look on his face.

He was a different person again, both mentally and physically. He was full grown, with not a trace of the child I'd known about him; he was taller than I now, and larger than his father had ever been. There was a hardness on every line of him, and a grim steeliness, but he allowed me to embrace him there in the kitchen like we had never done before.

"I told you I'd come back," he'd said stiffly, but I heard the small sound of joy in his voice that was deeper but somehow the same.

* * *

I should have known that he wasn't talking about career training in those letters he'd sent. I should have known he wouldn't return and lead a normal life. But I'd had no way of knowing what was next for Master Bruce.


	3. Chapter 3

_ The Lost Man_

It was not so long after his return that Master Bruce told me of his plans. At first I was concerned for his sanity and wondered what exactly he'd been doing all those years, but the thoroughness of it all made me doubt that they were the schemes of a madman. Designs, supplies, equipment, materials - he laid them all out for me, and said that he planned to do it all himself.

Yes, he'd learned many things while he was away, not the least of which were extreme hobbies like spelunking, construction, engineering, forensics, law, and the most curious type of combat training regimen.

Somehow, the reality of what he was planning to do hadn't set in until he was already doing it; sleeping all day, stalking the dark city streets by night, and coming back in the mornings with more wounds and injuries than I had ever seen one man sustain in all my life, both then and since. The newspapers began printing stories on him left and right - the masked vigilante of Gotham - calling him a criminal and a hero, sometimes in the same line. He became an icon, a symbol, a warning, and a promise.

He became the Batman, and all the suffering and devotion to city and self that went with it.

* * *

I'd kept all those letters Master Bruce had sent, and I still remember him writing that he believed he'd found what he'd been looking for. But I knew that his search was far from over. The Batman may have been what Gotham needed, but the cape and cowl was only a mask for the lost man underneath.


	4. Chapter 4

_The Interim_

I never fully understood the magnitude of the Batman. I'm still not sure if I do. The scope of him seemed to increase with every passing day; before either Master Bruce or I knew it, the world was watching the Caped Crusader.

It wasn't very long before others began to crop up. Not just people in costumes - heroes with fantastic powers, gods who had walked the earth in secret came out in defense of us normal citizens against the epidemic of organized crime. It was incredible, and terrifying, for they - Batman as well - inspired a new breed of criminals to match. All kinds of painted-up and jump-suited terrorists, seeking fame and intrigue or some other type of twisted satisfaction.

Master Bruce was concerned, to say the least. There was more than one occasion on which he asked me if the Batman was causing more harm than good, and for a while, I didn't know myself. But after only a few short years, the change in the city and its people was undeniable.

* * *

I remember the night Master Bruce summoned me to the cave under the manor, apart from other such nights. He'd really done a lot with it - instead of the cavernous pit it had been the day he dug into it, the place really looked like the sort of cave that would house a grown man in a bat suit.

He knew my feelings on the subject.

But I remember the night because as I descended from the main building into the hideout, carrying a tray with some dinner on the off chance that Master Bruce would be hungry, I was met with the absolutely unexpected sight of an enormous Olympian of a man standing beside the console chair and observing the collection of screens.

Dressed in red and blue and larger even than Master Bruce, Superman appeared in the Batman's operations as a sort of begrudged part-time accomplice. They rarely met, considering that Gotham and Metropolis aren't even in the same state, but they kept in contact. Master Bruce was always hesitant to trust these out-of-the-sky heroes, and it would take years for him to become accustomed to working with them.

That night, though, was a beginning as far as I was concerned. Master Bruce can claim what he will about the 'blue Boy Scout', as he likes to call Superman, but he can't hide his respect for the Man of Steel from me.

* * *

There is no question that the Batman came as a result of his parents' deaths. There is no doubt that Master Bruce will never fully heal from that night, years ago - it's not in his nature to. He keeps his scars, hidden under suits of various kinds, but kept all the same. I try to remind him regularly that there is more to a man than his wounds, but of the many skills and qualities Master Bruce possesses, listening to what he doesn't want to hear isn't one of them.


	5. Chapter 5

**I'm the worst updater. Is there anything I can do to make up for it?**

* * *

_Organization_

Some days, I sit and look back on all of the impossible things that happened in the last years that would seem insane to any well-adjusted man, all of the things that came to redefine "normal" inside Wayne Manor. Some days, I rub my arthritic knee and sigh and wonder how such insanity could have taken root in Master Bruce on my watch.

Then I look a little harder and see that for all his paranoia and self-punishing pursuits, I have never known such a capable man.

* * *

I could fill entire volumes on Master Bruce's nightly escapades: battling street crime, protecting the helpless, hunting down the twisted menaces who had the gall to claim that the Batman inspired them. But all of that is already known, or at least enough of it is rumored. What even the savviest Gothamite doesn't know is that even the Batman - dark, severe, ruthless - came home with a smile every once in a while. Granted, they were merely the smallest hints of upturned lips, but for Master Bruce, there was never a truer expression of satisfaction.

What caused these smile-shadows? I had never thought I'd see the day, but several years after forming the alliance with the hero of Metropolis, Master Bruce came home with a proposal.

"They're too powerful, Alfred. Given that, these heroes have all proven their worth to the people multiple times over. They're skilled, effective, and trusted, but lacking in one essential thing: organization."

And then he told me.

* * *

From the human perspective, it was simultaneously comforting and terrifying. A league of super-powered warriors watching the world from space? It was unreal, like the plot of a far-reaching science fiction novel. But it was also bloody brilliant.

As the caretaker of Wayne Manor and the last of its hereditary occupants, it was both a crowning achievement and another worry etched into the sagging skin on my forehead. Any ideal of aging with dignity was taken by the persistence of my ward; he could hardly take care of himself as it was, but with the added duties of building, planning, training, and dispatching for the group, it was considered a good day when Master Bruce woke with more than two hours of sleep to heal his freshest injuries.

But when I heard that there was a certain Amazonian princess - new to the world as well as to the League - who seemed to always be impressing the Batman with her knack for hard mercy and remorseless compassion, and to whom I gave much of the credit for those warming half-smiles, my judgment of the institution soon changed. There was nothing I couldn't forgive if it brought Master Bruce any amount of happiness.

Especially since he'd been diligently ignoring my wishes of meeting someone for the last ten years.

* * *

Needless to say, I was pleased when the heroes from above showed us down below that those in positions of power can still be selflessly brave, in spite of the ludicrously costly equipment and construction and maintenance of that orbiting Watchtower that took such a toll on the Wayne family funds. It was a good thing Master Bruce has such a skill for investing, or the wealth of his forefathers would have been drained before the metal hideout had even made it into the atmosphere.

They were marvelous, and I for one feel safer in this barbaric and tumultuous world because of them. Of course, they only achieved such heights because of Master Bruce's expert organization. And his pocketbook.


	6. Chapter 6

_Free_

I'm not a young man by any means, and many of my faculties have lost their luster. But there are some things that will never leave a man - for me, the memory of the day that Master Bruce brought home the most unexpected surprise will always be with me.

I remember everything about that day as if it were only yesterday, though no inconsiderable number of years have passed since. I remember that it began with a chilling fog and ended in the most fearful downpour. I remember that Master Bruce was late returning from his brisk morning run about the region, causing his breakfast to turn cold and setting me into chastising him for working an old man so hard for nothing. I remember that he'd half-chuckled and claimed that nothing I made could ever be less than delicious, regardless of temperature - he would know.

It was always in the mornings when he would let the Batman and Wayne masks fall just enough to remind me that my young Master Bruce was still there beneath it all.

I remember a great many other things about that day, but the more important one was that Bruce Wayne had an engagement with some high-rolling corporate executives whom he was determined to woo into donating to his arts charity for inner-city children, and they were going to the circus. Nobody had an inkling of the tragedy that was to take place that night under the big top.

He arrived back late again, but I was floored to see that he wasn't alone.

The boy looked just like him, and after taking in the absolutely lost and desolate little face, I would have sworn that I was right back on that similar stormy night twenty years ago.

I remember what Master Bruce said to me, after leading the rain-and-tear soaked boy into the kitchen and seeing him comfortable next to the fire. I will never forget the words he said with the most heartfelt conviction I'd ever heard him use in his whole life, then or since.

"He's alone now, Alfred. But I'm going to make sure he's alright."

* * *

Master Richard turned out to be only ten years old - barely older than Master Bruce had been, and though they looked so alike, the differences between them would have filled several books. The boy had an unbreakable spirit; even after witnessing such a trauma as he had suffered, he was up and exploring every nook and cranny of the manor before the week was out. He was so curious and avid in his game of discovery that I had to gather up all the case files and accessories that had found their way up from the cave, and even then he required a constant eye to make sure he wouldn't grab the wrong book or touch the wrong statue and tumble into Master Bruce's labyrinth of hidden passageways by accident.

It was a change, but Master Richard breathed such a life into these drafty halls the like of which hadn't been felt in too long. He took to following me around during the day, asking questions and telling young boy jokes and sharing fantastic stories of flying or riding elephants. Whenever Master Bruce was around, which wasn't often, much to the poor boy's disappointment - he had rather imprinted upon my distanced employer - he was constantly at the man's elbow with the brightest pair of singing blue eyes.

I must confess that it put Master Bruce quite at a loss. He'd always moved in an adult world, even when he'd been a child himself; he simply didn't know what to do with his new shadow. It was I who suggested that he try spending some time with the boy - they had so much to bond over - though if I had known what it would lead to, I'm sure I never would have opened my mouth.

* * *

"Absolutely not," I told him as the blood ran cold in my veins. Master Richard had only been with us for a week, but it would only have taken a few minutes with that boy to have built the attachment I already had for him - he was just that kind of warmhearted person.

Master Bruce had known how I'd react to his asinine plan. He knew, and he'd made all the preparations anyway.

"This is what he needs, Alfred," I remember him saying to me, but I saw the look in his eyes.

"Is it what he needs, or what you needed?"

He didn't have an answer for that.

* * *

For weeks after that, I watched as Master Bruce put his other obligations on hold so he could train his enthusiastic ward. I watched the master's surprise as he learned early on how talented our Master Richard was. I watched how the boy in my master returned to marvel at something so simple as Master Richard soaring through the air in the gym with all the ease and aplomb of the acrobat he was, just as he'd sworn he could.

Any other man wouldn't have been able to see it, that stoic excitement in Master Bruce's hardened eyes, but my old spectacles just managed to catch the impressed glint in them, though the moment was fleeting. Once Master Richard had his feet planted firmly on the ground again, it was right back to drills.

I wouldn't have thought it possible that such a gentle soul would be up to the strain, but Master Richard soaked up the combat training as if it were the antidote to a deadly poison. He learned quickly and practiced hard; never once did he complain about the work or the hours or the responsibility of the hero he was being primed to become, but he had an endless arsenal of questions.

"Will I get my own costume? How did you get all that stuff down those little shafts in the Cave? Where do the Bat-a-rangs come from? When do I get to drive the Batmobile?"

Ah, I'd forgotten that those little nicknames had come from him. Bat-a-rangs, Batmobile, Bat-grapple, Bat-computer - he had a Bat-themed name for everything. And the Cave. That sunken place will always be the _Cave_ to him, the boy who brought light into the dingy dark hole.

* * *

I remember the first night they went out together. I'd sewn the outfit just like Master Richard had drawn, and the siren-bright colors and terrifyingly little Kevlar about the stomach had nearly given me a heart attack. Master Bruce had given some curt excuse about mobility, but I'd been imagining bullets and pocketknives ever since the insane plan had invaded my ears - I was still rigidly opposed to the whole thing. But I remember how excited he was, prancing and bouncing and cartwheeling about, laughing at himself in the reflective bumper of the black car and kickboxing invisible foes. And I remember Master Bruce, smiling and proud and confident.

He returned a wreck. A wreck for him, I should clarify - by any regular person's standards, he would have appeared only mildly stressed.

"He must've turned his back on the guns a dozen times," he'd groaned as he collapsed into his chair at the monitors an hour before dawn. I'd been up waiting, preparing and re-preparing the medical supplies, though my fears were at last abated as they'd both miraculously made it through the night without a scratch.

"Beginning to regret your decision, sir?" It was all I'd wanted out of my humble life at that point - that Master Richard might be released from the dangerous life that was beginning to unfold before him.

"He's just so fearless," Master Bruce had continued in his gravelly tone, as if I hadn't spoken. He always was a rotten listener.

But again, for the umpteenth time since our duo had become three, I deduced something secret from Master Bruce's stony expression and carefully composed tone. It was admiration, of the subtlest and truest kind, of the boy that neither of us had seen coming. At first I'd been surprised, but now I see that it was only natural. The man who built himself on fear and regret would have to come to admire a soul who is free of both. Whether or not that soul was inside a ten year old in tights.


End file.
